


eat his heart in the marketplace

by dandelioness



Category: Original Work
Genre: Espionage, Gen, Setting - Train, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:14:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26703523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dandelioness/pseuds/dandelioness
Summary: Virginia only laughs and gently brushes him off, opting instead to walk by his side into town. They’re quiet for a few moments, ostensibly enjoying the easy walk on a fair day. And perhaps Baker is enjoying it; Virginia can’t say. She herself is cataloguing all her observations over the last several minutes and reviewing the conclusion she came to even before offering to guide the stranger to the station.This man is a German spy.
Relationships: Schoolgirl traveling home to her special agent father & Enemy agent who finds her en route
Comments: 6
Kudos: 13
Collections: Canon Ball 2020





	eat his heart in the marketplace

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RecessiveJean](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RecessiveJean/gifts).



> Dear recessivejean:  
> So I absolutely loved the idea proposed in your letter of setting this pair in WWII, and it like, consumed me. I had a lot of fun with this, and I hope I captured some of the Nancy Drew vibe I was going for. Enjoy! <3
> 
> CONTENT WARNINGS: oblique references to the Holocaust/Shoah; one of the characters is literally a nazi; references to past violence committed against a minor character; references to wartime deaths; threatened violence against said literal nazi.  
> It's been years since I was speaking German with any regularity, so please forgive any mistranslations. I did my best with a dictionary, my memory, and checking against online translators.

_Be vigilant with your studies, my dear Virginia, and know that I am thinking of you and reading our favorite plays every evening. I find I have run out of things to write you, except to tell you how much I miss you, and I’ve spilt enough ink on that topic already. So without much more ado, I must bid you adieu. Stay home, stay safe, and give your aunt my love._

_Write me soon._

_Your affectionate Father_

_PS — I eagerly await your thoughts on that mincemeat recipe we discussed_.

The bottom half of the page was blank, free of her father’s cramped scrawl — or, it had been until Virginia held it over a candle. With the application of the flame’s heat, a series of numbers appeared, charred brown and still smelling lightly of lemon.

_2.26.5/46.20.3/72.23.1/55.9.3/104.9.7/48.30.5/47.9.8/19.2.3/48.28.1/14.7.3/2.5.8/86.4.8/99.22.8/42.7.4/_

And now, beneath that, in Virginia’s own delicate script: _be swift and watch for German traps and disguises there are many who spy_

Virginia reads the letter and its postscript through one last time, lips pursed in concentration, just to make sure she hasn’t missed anything. She hasn’t, she determines, and nods once in satisfaction before folding the letter and tucking it into the copy of _Much Ado About Nothing_ she used to decode the final, hidden postscript. She isn’t going to get a better invitation to London than this.

Like many English children, Virginia was sent out of the city not long after the Blitz began. She’s one of the luckier ones, she knows: her Great-Aunt Henrietta has a small house at the edge of a village a little ways north of London, less than two hours by train. Virginia spent much of her childhood summers there, and she would usually be more than happy to spend time with her odd, stern spinster aunt. But there’s a war on, and Father is alone, and Virginia just _knows_ that he’s working far too much. And it isn’t hubris to think that he needs her there, with him, for that work as well. The line about the mincemeat recipe makes that clear enough.

Virginia’s information on the subject is fairly limited, given she isn’t _actually_ on the MI6 payroll, but she knows enough from her last face-to-face conversation with Father two months ago. Operation Mincemeat is a plan cooked up (pun intended) to mislead the enemy and obscure the real plans of the Allied forces. They’ve created an entirely fictional man, a false agent with false plans and an entire false history. He would have a birth certificate and state records, a job history and a permanent address. The agency thought of nearly everything to create as real a man as never existed.

But it was Virginia’s idea to give him a sweetheart. During Father’s last visit, she proposed that their Mincemeat man, to be fully real, needed a personal life as well. She’d offered to draw a sketch of a fictional sweetheart, or perhaps write a love letter for them to place inside the man’s coat. Next to his heart, where so many soldiers carried mementos of home. Father thought it was brilliant, and promised to run the idea past his superiors. This letter, with its hint about the operation and the hidden code imploring her to be swift and cautious, is as bold a request for Virginia’s return as her father dares send.

“Letter from your father?” Aunt Etta inquires from where she sits opposite Virginia in the parlor.

Virginia looks up to find her aunt studying her thoughtfully over her cup of tea. She nods. “He wants me back in London,” she tells Etta, no nonsense. Aunt Etta is the sort who doesn’t tolerate nonsense in any form, but particularly hates unnecessary chatter and small talk when there are actual questions to be addressed.

Even at nearly 90 years old, Aunt Etta is tall and unbent — taller than either Virginia or her father — with a stern face, set in harsh lines. She wears long, old-fashioned dresses, and treats the process of making tea with the same solemnity Virginia imagines Catholics hold for communion. She never married, and is ferociously independent in a way that Virginia admires and hopes to one day emulate. Virginia once told her father that Aunt Etta’s wrinkles looked as though they’d forgotten how to smile. Father had smiled wanly himself at that, before sighing and telling her, _Life hasn’t given your aunt many reasons to smile. The world has fought her at every turn, and I think we are very lucky indeed that she remembers how to be kind in spite of it all._ If life has fought Etta at every turn, though, Etta has fought back and _won_ more often than not. Virginia loves her dearly.

Now, Etta returns Virginia’s nod and takes another thoughtful sip of her tea. “You’re going,” she says, and it’s not a question. Etta knows Virginia well. “It’ll be dangerous in London. Not just from the bombs, either. But you’ll be a young girl, largely unchaperoned, living with an intelligence agent in wartime. And I suppose he’s caught you up in his plotting again?” She sighs and shakes her head, not waiting for an answer. Placing her tea carefully on the table in front of her, Etta says kindly, “You don’t have to go, my dear.”

Virginia does her aunt the honor of actually thinking her response through before she opens her mouth. “I know. But — if I can help, if this could save the life of even one man on the front lines, and I don’t go...Well. I wouldn’t really be the woman you or Father raised me to be, now would I?”

Etta smiles.

There’s a young man standing at a crossroads at the edge of town. He’s older than Virginia — 22, 23 at her best guess — and a stranger, which isn’t so common these days. His expression is one of intense concentration, with the beginnings of a frown forming between his eyebrows as he stares at a worn paper map. He’s lost, and not at all subtle about it.

Approaching, Virginia calls out a friendly greeting. “Hello! Lovely morning, isn’t it?”

The man startles slightly, and spins to meet Virginia’s gaze with wide eyes. After taking a moment to recover, he grins sheepishly. “Pardon me, miss, you gave me quite the start. I must admit, it's a bit dreary for my tastes, but I suppose one can’t live on sunshine alone.”

Virginia smiles back at him, coming to a stop a few feet away. “You’ve got a map,” she points out, nodding to the object in question. “Are you new to town?”

He glances at the map himself before folding it and tucking it into his jacket pocket. “I suppose it is rather obvious, isn’t it?” He lets his smile go a little self-deprecating. “And much good the map does me — not a signpost for miles!”

There’s almost a question in this last, but he doesn’t quite voice it. “Nary a one,” Virginia confirms. “Lucky for you, I’m old hat at navigating these nameless streets. Allow me to be your guide?”

“That would be most welcome,” the man says with unfeigned relief. “You’re too kind, Miss…?”

“Oh! Rose. Virginia Rose,” she tells him, holding out her hand. Virginia is not in the habit of giving her name to strangers, and so she leaves off her surname entirely, letting him take her middle name as a surname instead.

“Carl Baker,” he returns, taking her hand and shaking it vigorously. “I am in your debt, Miss Rose.”

“Nonsense,” she says briskly, although she allows her smile to soften it. “Now, where are we heading, Mr. Baker?”

“Train station. My uncle dropped me off this morning, apparently confident I could navigate a country town on my own. I’m afraid I’ve rather disappointed his faith in me.”

Virginia gives a little laugh at that, and nods in the direction she was going anyway. “Well, your uncle never has to know. You’re very much in luck, Mr. Baker. I am heading to London this afternoon myself, and I would be delighted if you’d accompany me to the station.”

“It would be my pleasure, Miss Rose,” Baker says, giving her a mocking little half-bow and offering her his arm.

Virginia only laughs and gently brushes him off, opting instead to walk by his side into town. They’re quiet for a few moments, ostensibly enjoying the easy walk on a fair day. And perhaps Baker is enjoying it; Virginia can’t say. She herself is cataloging all her observations over the last several minutes and reviewing the conclusion she came to even before offering to guide the stranger to the station. Her catalog is as follows:

_His accent: Perfect Received Pronunciation, precise in a way that one generally only hears on the radio. Textbook correctness that no one in this part of the country uses._

_His appearance: Hair short, likely a military cut gone slightly too long without a trim. Jacket over a wool jumper, both a few years out of style, though that’s not uncommon these days. Heavy, military-issue boots, in much better condition than the rest of his clothing, far more uncommon._

_His stance: Back straight, legs slightly apart — unconsciously falling into a parade rest._

_His remarks on the weather: It really is a lovely spring day, the mist of the morning burnt off entirely and the sky a pale pearly grey — and yet he’d remarked that the day was_ dreary _for his taste._

_His map: The street signs have been down for over a year. Not just here, but all over the island. No signposts, no milestones, no railway station signs. No one in Britain would bother with a map in a strange town these days; best just to ask about. And no one would drop their nephew off at the edge of town without directions._

_His family: Virginia has been living with her Great-Aunt Etta for eight months. She knows all the families with homes and farms around the edges of town, and not one of them bears the name Baker._

This man is a German spy.

Virginia hadn’t truly understood what, precisely, it was her father did for a living until the War began in earnest. She knew he traded in secrets, and that he knew much more about the inner workings of Great Britain than most, and that when he came home looking more tired and stressed than usual, there was guaranteed to be some ominous news from abroad in the papers in a few days’ time.

It had all seemed like great fun to Virginia, especially as a small child. Her father, a recent widower with little idea how to raise a child on his own, had often kept Virginia entertained by teaching her little things from his work. He’d leave her little notes hidden in her bookshelf or under her tea cup, short messages that, when Virginia decoded them, read things like, _my beloved daughter_ and _surely that is too much milk for a single cup of tea_ and _that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet_. At first, they were simple numerical or alphabetical substitutions; then variations on a playfair cipher, acrostics, and book codes. Her childhood play was puzzling out locks and making up stories and poring over maps while making believe she was a war general.

When Virginia was thirteen, Germany invaded Poland and Father began to work longer hours and she suddenly, truly understood that none of it, ever, had been a game.

Virginia’s father taught her how to learn secrets, how to keep them and when to tell them. He taught her how to hide in plain sight, to read and write in code, how to recognize a liar and how to lie well enough God Himself would believe her. He taught her to pick locks and escape restraints, and how to throw off an attacker bigger and stronger than herself. He taught her French and German and a little bit of Italian. Father taught her everything he knew about his own work, and at sixteen she’s confident that her skills are equal to the best agents at MI6. She wonders, sometimes, if this is because he knew how to train agents better than how to raise a daughter, but usually decides it doesn’t matter. Virginia is glad of it, all the same.

The walk through town doesn’t take very long, perhaps fifteen minutes. After the first few moments, Virginia starts up a light, cheerful chatter with Mr. Baker. It’s mostly idle gossip about the town, though nearly half of it is about imaginary people; any information she reveals or hints at will be so muddled with fiction that Baker will have nothing reliable from this conversation to report to his superiors. If it makes it back to his superiors, which Virginia does _not_ intend to allow.

Baker’s responses are vague and polite enough, that friendly smile fixed on his face in a way that clearly betrays its falseness. His eyes are more active, sharp and constantly darting, memorizing their surroundings and the geography of the streets. Virginia takes them on a rather circuitous route to the state, just for the fun of it, and Baker doesn’t appear to notice.

Virginia is not particularly impressed with Nazi intelligence training.

Early in the war, Virginia came home from school to find Father slumped at the kitchen table, half-empty glass of whiskey in his hand. His eyes were red-rimmed and he looked more miserable than Virginia could remember seeing him in years. Hesitantly, she sat in the chair next to him and put one of her hands lightly over his. Father didn’t so much as blink.

She didn’t know how long they stayed like that, but eventually Father said, his voice harsh, _I lost a good man today, Ginny. A bureaucrat, passing information about — about the camps. His wife found out and turned him in herself._ He knocked back the last of the whiskey while Virginia looked on in horror. Father slammed the glass back down. _His own_ wife _. My sources say that she did it to save herself and their children, that she_ didn’t have a choice _. I think she was just a coward_.

When Father turned to look at her, his eyes were fierce and sad and his voice was terribly hollow. _Promise me, Ginny. Promise me you’ll remember there is_ always _a choice. Even if it’s dangerous, even if it’s frightening, please remember that you always have the choice to do the right thing._

Virginia hadn’t even hesitated before whispering, _I promise_.

The train has been rumbling along for little more than an hour when Virginia decides to show her hand. Their idle conversation tapered off a few minutes ago, and Baker is staring contemplatively out the window, a small frown settling between his eyebrows. Virginia allows herself another minute to study him, to reassure herself that she’s making the right call. She gives her arms a small stretch, lets out a quiet but audible yawn, and murmurs, as if to herself, “Wie spät ist es?” _What time is it?_

Across from her, Baker checks his watch automatically before absently replying, “Halb zwei.” _Half two._

Virginia is really _quite_ unimpressed with Nazi intelligence training.

“Nur eine halbe Stunde bis wir in London ankommen,” Virginia remarks in the same tone. _Only half an hour until we arrive in London._

“Mm,” Baker agrees, and then starts. He turns from the window to stare at Virginia with wide eyes. In an undertone, he curses. “Scheisse.” _Shit._

“Yes, I do believe that summarizes your situation quite well, Herr Baker,” Virginia agrees, returning to English. “Did you really expect to get to London undetected?”

“Honestly?” Baker asks. He sighs heavily and leans back in his seat with an aura of defeat that Virginia frankly disdains. Is he not even going to try to protest his innocence? “Yes. I thought I was doing pretty well.”

“You’re a fool,” she informs him, brusque and matter-of-fact. “Fortunately for you, we have half an hour to discuss all the possibilities of your fate before our arrival in London.”

Baker snorts. “Wird ein kleines Mädchen über meine Zukunft entscheiden?” he asks, skepticism dripping from his voice. _Will a little girl decide my future?_ Virginia can’t be bothered to take offense.

“As this little girl has already proven infinitely more competent than you at this whole business, yes. Yes, your future is in my hands.”

Baker studies her face a moment and subsides. “What is it you want?”

 _All your information and then your head on a platter, ideally,_ Virginia does not say. Baker may have decided that honesty is his best route forward, but Virginia has no interest in matching him. “First, is it accurate to assume that you are, in fact, a German spy?”

“I thought we had already settled that question,” he returns, raising a single eyebrow. Virginia is actually a little disappointed by how easily he’s given himself up.

“I’d settled that you are German, and a fool, but I had been willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.” Really, it’s a wonder the Germans have gotten as far as they have if _this_ is their crack intelligence. She can’t help but ask, “Do they teach you _anything_ in Nazi intelligence?”

Baker has the gall to look _offended_. Before he can voice whatever inane defense he’s cobbling together, Virginia waves a dismissive hand. “Never mind. I want to know what, exactly, it is you’re doing here. How did you get here? Are you alone?”

“Why would I tell you any of that?” Baker demands, unwarranted disdain creeping into his tone.

Virginia sighs. “Mr. Baker. You are a Nazi spy who lasted less than a half a day on British soil. One who was uncovered by a sixteen year old girl. We have less than a half hour now until we arrive in London. I have connections with the British government, one of whom will be there to meet me at the platform. When you leave this train, you will walk straight into an arrest.

“Talking to me can hardly worsen your circumstances. Perhaps, if you’re very convincing, I’ll be willing to make a case for leniency in London. Humor me.”

Baker remains still and silent throughout this little speech, leaned back in his seat with his arms crossed, intense gaze never leaving Virginia’s face. Finally, he gives the barest nod.

“Airplane drop, last night. As far as I know, it’s just me. As for the rest, well. I’m sorry, Miss Rose, but charming as you are, I cannot tell you that.”

Virginia nods, settling back a little herself. Quite honestly, that was far more than she’d expected. The incompetence is staggering.

They sit in silence for a long while, watching each other cautiously. Virginia neither knows nor cares what’s going through Baker’s excuse for a mind, but she is turning over and over the question, _What on earth am I to do with him_?

Eventually, she subsides, and slips back into the friendly, curious girl she’d been upon greeting him. “Carl Baker. That’s not your real name, is it?” she asks, soft.

He blinks, surprised that she’s spoken again, before shaking his head. “No. Rather, it is — the Anglicized version, anyway.” He clears his throat. “Karl Bäker.”

“The best lies always have a grain of truth,” Virginia observes wryly. She considers another moment, and then, switching to German, “Warum machen Sie diese Arbeit?” _Why are you doing this work?_

Bäker blinks, taken aback, though whether by the language or the question, she can’t tell. “Es ist meine Pflicht.” He pauses, then adds in a slightly more bitter tone, “Ich weiß nicht, wie die Wehrpflicht in England funktioniert, aber das deutsche Militär lässt nicht viel Auswahl.” _It's my duty. I don't know how conscription works in England, but the German military doesn't leave much choice._

Throughout Virginia’s childhood, Great-Aunt Etta often came to stay with her and Father in their London home. She helped Virginia with her lessons, and taught her to draw, and read to her when Father had to work late into the night. Virginia loved these visits with Aunt Etta, and derived much of her enjoyment from Etta’s transparent discomfort with small children. This led to Etta treating Virginia as if she were a very small adult, which delighted Virginia to no end.

Virginia must have been around eight years old when Etta witnessed an argument between Virginia and her father over dinner. More specifically, over Virginia’s refusal to eat her beans. Exasperated, Father picked up a forkful himself and tried to push it into her mouth. Aunt Etta was _furious._ She knocked the fork from Father’s hand and told him, in no uncertain terms, that _no one was to be force-fed on her watch_. She had seen _quite_ enough of that, thank you.

The outburst had shocked Virginia, who had never seen Aunt Etta raise her hand or her voice in all her young life. Father apologized to them both, properly chagrined, and nothing more was said of the matter.

It was only two years later that Virginia put together the stories of Etta’s friend Emmaline and her hatred of the idea of force-feeding.

During a visit to the country home, Virginia came across a box of old buttons and pamphlets advocating for women’s suffrage. Among them were notes from meetings of the Women’s Social and Political Union, and a faded carbon-copy record of release from jail. Virginia took it reverently in her hand, careful not to crush the paper that had to have been nearly thirty years old even then, and asked Aunt Etta if the release papers were hers. Etta had thinned her lips, mouth curling up at one corner in the closest she ever got to smiling, and nodded.

For the rest of the afternoon, the two of them had sat in Etta’s parlor, drinking tea while Etta told stories of the suffragettes. Virginia, eyes wide, had asked, _Weren’t you afraid?_

Aunt Etta had looked her niece in the eye and nodded. _Of course I was afraid_ , she said. _But there will come times in your life when you must choose between what is right and what is easy. I saw injustice in the world, and I knew I could never live with myself if I chose silence and safety over what I knew to be right_.

Later that night, before Virginia went to bed, Aunt Etta stopped her and told her firmly, _The world will underestimate your abilities. You must never be afraid to be militant when you know yourself to be in the right._

When she told her father about this, he only sighed and said, _Yes, your aunt has certainly never shied away from a little light arson when she feels it to be necessary._

They’ve come into the city proper while Bäker was making his excuses. Even now, the train is slowing, and the piercing blow of the whistle drowns out all else as they approach the platform. Out the window, Virginia can see the dear, familiar figure of her father waiting expectantly outside the station. Just as Aunt Etta hadn’t needed to ask to know that Virginia would go to London, her father didn’t need to wait for a response to know that Virginia would arrive on the next train. She aches, for a moment, over how well her family knows her, how well they raised her.

Virginia’s father taught her maths and spelling and geography and how to spy with the best of them. Aunt Etta taught Virginia how to draw and paint, how to read music. She’d tried to teach Virginia to play the piano, but Virginia turned out to be hopeless at keeping a basic rhythm, and horrendously tone-deaf to boot. Etta taught her women’s history and politics and her prayers, and told Virginia stories of the mother she’d never known.

She also taught Virginia how to hide a pistol in her skirts, and how to shoot it with deadly accuracy.

Coming once more fully into the present, Virginia takes that pistol from her pocket. Without losing her pleasant smile or breaking eye contact with Bäker, cocks it and aims it directly between her enemy’s eyes.

“Oh, Mr. Bäker. There is always a choice.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I have prepared some fun facts!
> 
>   * The book code used is a simple one: page number, line, word. I used a 1917 Yale University Press edition of _Much Ado About Nothing_ , largely because it was the first book I could find in my house published before 1941. 
>   * [Operation Mincemeat](http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/topics/operation_mincemeat) was a real thing done by MI6 during WWII! I obviously took some liberties with how it actually happened, but it was in fact a real thing. The body of the created "agent" was dumped off the shore of Spain with a briefcase containing faked plans. They were meant to redirect German forces and intelligence from the Allied invasion of Sicily. 
>   * I know absolutely nothing about WWII! But my dad and little sister both know a lot about English espionage during the War, so I just called them and let them tell me All The Things. Thanks, family! 
>   * Etta's friend Emmeline is [Emmeline Pankhurst](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmeline_Pankhurst), a British radical, suffragist, and all-around badass. Many of the more radical suffragists were arrested and put in prison. When they went on hunger strike to protest the injustice and the conditions of the prison, they were force-fed, which was violent and traumatic and really, really messed up. 
>   * Title, like the code, is taken from _Much Ado_
> 



End file.
